Profiles of Early Family Risk and the Socioemotional Functioning of Infants and Toddlers

Research consistently indicates that exposure to a range of early family risk factors is associated with compromised social and emotional functioning in early childhood, but less is known about configurations of multiple risk factors within families. The present study investigated a range of risk factors representing family structure (marital status, child\u27s father in the home), sociodemographic context (maternal age, household income, maternal education, and insurance status), and maternal psychosocial functioning (maternal postnatal depression and prenatal physical and psychological relationship conflict) from a person-centered approach in a diverse, urban sample of 819 mothers. Latent variable mixture modeling was used to identify subgroups of families with similar profiles across the risk factors, a seven class solution emerged as statistically and conceptually supported. In addition to larger SESOnly Risk (30%) and Low Risk (31%) classes, a Cohabitating Middle Income (13%) class emerged, as well as a class of Single Mothers (6%), a class characterized by low SESand physical conflict (Low SES-Physical Conflict; 11%), and a low SESclass characterized by very elevated postnatal depression (Low SES-Depressed; 4%). When socioemotional functioning at 12 and 24 months was compared between classes, results indicated that the Low SES-Depressed class was at high risk for elevated ratings across domains and time points, and the Low SES-Physical Conflict, SESOnly, and Cohabitating Middle classes were also at more moderate increased risk with differential links to different BITSEAdomains. For example, the SES Only class was at elevated risk across domains at 12 months, and particular risk for Internalizing difficulties at 24 months, whereas the Low SES-Physical Conflict class was at significant risk for Externalizing difficulties at 24 months. The Cohabitating Middle class was at increased risk for Internalizing difficulties at 12 months only. These results are discussed in the context of early family development with a discussion of clinical and prevention-based implications

Evaluating Treatments and Interventions: What Constitutes “Evidence-based” Treatment?

This chapter provides an overview of the evidence-based treatment (EBT) paradigm, beginning with definitional issues, followed by a discussion on use of the iterative process and the importance of strong academic–practice partnerships to inform the development, selection, and implementation of EBTs. The discussion then turns to the importance of attaining, measuring, and sustaining fidelity to the treatment models; and identifying common barriers to sustained EBT use. Drawing from our expertise related to interventions for children and adolescents, a few dissemination/implementation models are highlighted as examples of current efforts to achieve sustained use of EBTs among practitioners, within agencies, and across communities. This involves keeping up to date with the research and integrating the available evidence base with clinical expertise and patient characteristics, including cultural considerations and client preferences for treatment. The chapter concludes with directions for the future, including considerations for practitioners, referring agents, and agency senior leaders to promote, support, and sustain EBTs

Adolescent Reactions to Maternal Responsiveness and Internalizing Symptomatology: A Daily Diary Investigation

A daily diary methodology was employed to gather teens’ perceptions of maternal responsiveness to daily stressful events and teens’ reactions to maternal responsiveness in a diverse sample (792 entries from 104 teens; 81% African American, mean age 13.7 years). Additionally, parents and teens completed baseline reports of internalizing symptoms. Diary findings were congruent with prior studies employing self-report measures of global maternal responses to emotion (e.g., higher probability of Accepting reactions to supportive responses, higher probabilities of Attack, Avoid-Withdraw reactions to non-supportive responses). Elevated baseline internalizing symptoms were related to perception of elevated Punish and Magnify responses during the week, and more Avoidant (Avoid-Withdraw and Avoid-Protect) reactions to responsiveness. Results are discussed in the context of reciprocal emotion socialization processes

Prospective associations between loneliness and emotional intelligence

Loneliness has been linked cross-sectionally to emotional skill deficits (e.g., Zysberg, 2012), but missing from the literature is a longitudinal examination of these relationships. The present study fills that gap by examining the prospective relationships between loneliness and emotional functioning in young adolescents in England. One hundred and ninety-six adolescents aged 11-13 years (90 females) took part in the study and completed the youth version of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT-YV) and the peer-related subscale of the Loneliness and Aloneness Scale for Children and Adolescents (LACA) at two time points, which were 10 months apart. Prospective associations were obtained for male and female adolescents separately using cross-lagged statistical techniques. Our results showed prospective links between understanding and managing emotions and loneliness for both females and males. Perceiving and using emotions were prospectively linked to loneliness in males only. Possible explanations and directions for future research are discussed

Investigating hyper-vigilance for social threat of lonely children

The hypothesis that lonely children show hypervigilance for social threat was examined in a series of three studies that employed different methods including advanced eye-tracking technology. Hypervigilance for social threat was operationalized as hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion in a variation of the hostile attribution paradigm (Study 1), scores on the Children’s Rejection-Sensitivity Questionnaire (Study 2), and visual attention to socially rejecting stimuli (Study 3). The participants were 185 children (11 years-7 months to 12 years-6 months), 248 children (9 years-4 months to 11 years-8 months) and 140 children (8 years-10 months to 12 years-10 months) in the three studies, respectively. Regression analyses showed that, with depressive symptoms covaried, there were quadratic relations between loneliness and these different measures of hypervigilance to social threat. As hypothesized, only children in the upper range of loneliness demonstrated elevated hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion, higher scores on the rejection sensitivity questionnaire, and disengagement difficulties when viewing socially rejecting stimuli. We found that very lonely children are hypersensitive to social threat

Narrative Skills Predict Peer Adjustment across Elementary School Years

The importance of peer adjustment in middle childhood coincides with developing social cognitive and discursive skills that include the ability to make personal narrative accounts. Authoring personal stories promotes attention to the sequence of events, the causal connections between events, the moral significance of what has happened, and the motives that drive human action: these skills may be critical for the establishment and maintenance of satisfying peer relationships during elementary school. The present study extended previous research by considering whether narrative skills in written stories about peer interactions predicted peer adjustment. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, 92 children wrote narratives about peer experiences and completed surveys on measures of peer adjustment for two school years. Cross-lagged panel models indicated that chronological and thematic coherence and reports of moral concerns in narratives in the first year of the study contributed to lower peer disliking in the subsequent academic year. Reports of motives in Year 1 narratives contributed to lower levels of loneliness and peer victimization in Year 2. Writing personal narratives that are coherent and attentive to moral concerns and motives may be especially beneficial for children who have difficulty connecting with peers. We discuss implications for classroom practices

Adolescent Loneliness and Social Skills:Agreement and Discrepancies Between Self-, Meta-, and Peer-Evaluations

Contains fulltext : 160961.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Lonely adolescents report that they have poor social skills, but it is unknown whether this is due to an accurate perception of a social skills deficit, or a biased negative perception. This is an important distinction, as actual social skills deficits require different treatments than biased negative perceptions. In this study, we compared self-reported social skills evaluations with peer-reported social skills and meta-evaluations of social skills (i.e., adolescents' perceptions of how they believe their classmates evaluate them). Based on the social skills view, we expected negative relations between loneliness and these three forms of social skills evaluations. Based on the bias view, we expected lonely adolescents to have more negative self- and meta-evaluations compared to peer-evaluations of social skills. Participants were 1342 adolescents (48.64 % male, M age = 13.95, SD = .54). All classmates rated each other in a round-robin design to obtain peer-evaluations. Self- and meta-evaluations were obtained using self-reports. Data were analyzed using polynomial regression analyses and response surface modeling. The results indicated that, when self-, peer- and meta-evaluations were similar, a greater sense of loneliness was related to poorer social skills. Loneliness was also related to larger discrepancies between self- and peer-evaluations of loneliness, but not related to the direction of these discrepancies. Thus, for some lonely adolescents, loneliness may be related to an actual social skills deficit, whereas for others a biased negative perception of one's own social skills or a mismatch with the environment may be related to their loneliness. This implies that different mechanisms may underlie loneliness, which has implications for interventions.11 p

Perceptions of Parental Awareness of Emotional Responses to Stressful Life Events

There is a need to better understand family processes related to recovery from past stressful life events. The present study aimed to investigate links between perceptions of parental awareness regarding stressful life events, continued event-related rumination, and current symptoms of depression. Students at a diverse, urban university completed a life events checklist and a semistructured interview regarding family processing of stressful life events, as well as self-report measures of event-related rumination and depression. Results indicated that perceptions of mothers’ and fathers’ awareness of sadness regarding stressful life events as well as mothers’ and fathers’ verbal event processing predicted symptoms of event-related rumination and depression. Results support the inclusion of perceptions of parental awareness in the understanding of how emerging adults continue to cope with past stressful life events